#tglc dec 97

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END OF YEAR PARTY

From Adria; Columbia

It has been a long year.

The idea of finishing one year, and starting a new one, is purely psychological; time moves on at the same pace, doesn't it? But it's a satisfying mental trick. The pacing of time with ritual is a long-standing human action and one that colors a lot of cultural practice. This year, we'd like to invite you all for some New Year's Eve festivities. We plan to begin at the Turtle Bay Grill in Hunt Valley Mall, where we'll have dinner and enjoy the fish. Then, we're having a bonfire at Kino's place, just north of Hunt Valley, to ring in 1998. Parking might be limited, so please carpool. Your editor and Gillian plan on being there, along with the Moshimoshi Anime crew. In more personal news, your editor has moved to the Columbia area. Gillian and I are sharing an apartment for now and we hope to move on to more permanent digs. We've found a printer who will put up with our nonsense and plan to continue subjecting you to our melange of material for the forseeable future…. …except. The Cypher's next publication date is uncertain. Those of you who are aware of the online forum know that we will continue to be there in the net-waves. Gillian's new job is time-consuming and I'll be working on original writing efforts. However, we are working on a more permanent (and possibly more focused) future for the Cypher in the hands of two parties. The first are Kino, with the Moshimoshi Anime shop, who plan on putting out a purely anime zine. The second, and the planned inheritors of the Cypher name, are our friends the Hackers Guild. They would like to continue on with the Cypher as a magazine for original fiction, puzzles, and urban/rural adventuring. We will continue to contribute where we can, but the heavy lifting and a lot of the content will be up to them. Change is a bittersweet thing. It's hard to let go of something I began, and see it change with no promise of its survival. But an ending does not have to represent a failure or a lack of commitment. Our lives are finite and it is all right for things to end or change. We tread into the unknown void, with no certainly of the future we will find, but with the knowledge that in movement lies a future. Change may be a revolution, but it is in those endings that beginnings start. We hope to see you at New Year's, and many more times in the future. Live long, and prosper.

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The Skipper

A Short Story, by Gillian

Part 1

I do not often see dress clips in my investigations. Frankly, I don't see them often enough at all!

My mother doesn’t get many through her shop. It’s a bit of a pity; if I could get brooches with the right clip, I would use them on necklines and vest-edges, ties and cuffs alike.” Eliot looked aside, and I grinned at her. "They're just what they say; a clip. You stick it on wherever your garment has an edge. I don't think they date to earlier than the 20s, and by the 50s they just didn't stick around. The Coro duette, or symmetrical dress-clips with uniting mount, were a flash in the pan. "So. Imagine my surprise when Mother called me in for these." I set out the photos. The clips were triangular, with leaf-curves along their long points, and about two inches long each. The whole surface was flat, unpunched or cut, and relieved only by applied gold-work. A round gem sat on the base-side of the triangle, its intaglio carving oriented so that the whole clip would point downwards. "They're not the style you'd usually see in a dress clip. The style is that of Castellani, and I have no idea whether that shop produced any such work. I'm still waiting on a call back, but I'm not holding out hope. "It is gold; the gems were carved, too, with the skill of Castellani. But look at the design! Nothing like that ever came out of the 'archeological' style." I passed the photos around. "Is it something that was remade into a clip?" Atwood conjectured. "Very possibly," I said. "So, the piece itself is odd; but I suppose someone considered it a matter of taste. It's the gems that were bizarre to me. The intaglio gems fit the rest of the style, as far as that goes; but the subject!" I spread my hands in near-ridicule. "Look at the two of them! That thing there, that's facing the right." "It's… cute?" Eliot said. "It's got great round eyes." "It took me a week to remember where I had seen it," I said. "Here." "Dear god, you're enjoying this too much," Sayers said. "It's a telescopefish," I told her. "Deep sea critter. Doesn't it look like one?" "I suppose it could," Atwood said. "And the other…" I trailed off. "Sea star?" Eliot asked. "A plant," Atwood said. "Or a face—" "No," Sayers said. "It does look like a fossil crinoid, doesn't it?" I said, grinning at her. "I wasn't going to say face-hugger." "Nonsense. The Romans didn't know what they were," Sayers said. "Or will you say they're ghost crinoids, hn?" "Not this time," I said. "And I'm sure the ancient Romans might have seen a fossil crinoid. And the jewels could be modern. There's just no telling." "So why did they come to you, then?" Sayers asked. "That's the funny part," I said. "So I have here someone's… journeyman art project, or perhaps a nineteen-twenties fusion that was tasteless at the time and simply reads as spooky now. But this didn't come from a customer, Sayers. I inherited it." "Ohhh," Eliot said quietly, smiling. "The plot thickens." "Some of you may recall my grandfather," I said. "He was a character; he spent some of his life in his parents' native Britain, but they never forgot their Scottish heritage. I think he'd never let us forget it, either, certainly not when it came to toll roads! But he loved sailing. And this, you understand, is something he found." "Found," Sayers said. "Oh yes," I said. "Found, out on the ocean."

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What's a filk?

From Gillian

Ever wondered what a spaceship pilot's folk song would sound like?

The ballad of a Lackey character's ride, always the complaint of its subject? Maybe thought of a song about, not a bandit's ride, but the legend of Mike Jittlov, Wizard of Speed and Time? Filk is the medium for you. Legend has it that that's a typo for 'folk'. Filksings are where people meet up and perform theirs and others' music. Some local science fiction conventions used to have filksings, and some still do, if you ask around. The topics handled in filk range from Star Trek (and Star Wars) to scifi/fantasy novels, other filk singers, modern (often space-related) topics, and humanity's aspirations for the future. Modern social commentary can and does happen. One of the notable, and easy to overlook, aspects of filk is its crowd-participatory nature. Filksings are for the whole audience, and may allow any or all comers to take the stage. The folk-music nature of a lot of filk means that the crowd can learn and join in on the chorus of a song. A lot of filk is out-of-print and available on cassette tape only. All tapes by Off Centaur Productions (especially the Bayfilk/San Francisco crowd's work, including some by the incomparable Julia Ecklar) are out of print, but you might be able to pick them up used. Today, you can order some material from that era from Firebird Records, and Alexander Adams is still in print. There was a group called the Technical Difficulties on the East Coast, as well, who wrote some lovely original work and a delightful anthem to the Enterprise. If you'd like to explore filk, send the Cypher a note; the Anime Ramen crew has a couple of English-language scifi fen who have been around and would be willing to either run a tape copy or have you come listen. Maybe we can set up a filksing…

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Film and Video

From Kino

New Releases: Big month in the theaters. Scream 2 is up; Neve Campbell is back. There's a new Bond movie, still Pierce Brosnan. Amistad looks intriguing. Titanic could be a great disaster flick if you enjoy that sort of thing. Alien Resurrection is … certainly something, but if you like the big toothy guys, it exists. (Gillian adds: Sigourney and Winona? Don't care, must see.) Anastasia uses a surprisingly modern date for its fairy-tale style story. Anastasia (yes, the Russian Anastasia) fights warlock Rasputin and her own amnesia. Musical. Not a Mouse flick, surprisingly; it's Don Bluth! New on VHS: Men in Black is on home video. Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone is out, too! Monthly Rental Mission: Have a night with friends. Or, if it's better, a night alone. Pick something you can enjoy, and just take a moment to relax. Stay warm and enjoy the end of the year. At Moshimoshi Anime: New box from Japan. Laserdiscs, DVDs, VHS, soundtracks on CD. Fushigi Yuugi, back by popular demand. We take requests.

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Part 1

Use the chart to your left to pick out the bigrams. As you can see, the results are cryptic indeed! I won't lie: I think this alphabet isn't ideal, but without constructing a fresh table, this one worked as well for a demonstration. The reciever will have to use the table to decode the message. I'm not really sure what approach would work for breaking this, frankly. Other than nabbing the table! For more fun, try this additional practice:

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-Greetings, programs! Harry's Bakery is happening. For those fans of Gino's, guess what: Gino was kind enough to share some of his favorite recipes with us on the condition that we make them available to all of you. So we have! Come check them out, or have some of our own baking. If you'd like to talk supply deals, we're happy to hear from you!

From: Harry H.

WANTED: Someone to go spelunking with me. Site unexplored. Likelihood of anomalous phenomena high. I am working off of FOIA data which may omit dangers. Must have gas mask and hazmat suit. E-mail 07532.069@compuserve.net for details.

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Notes and Queries

-EC, LR: I am so excited for the movie! Do you want to make a night of it when it comes out in theaters? -From: S. M.

-Are there any ghost-hunting groups in Towson? I'll be starting college in the fall and I would love to do some spooky exploring. -From: J. A.

-Jeannie's Dream Journal: I dreamed that I was swimming in the Chesapeake. The water was cool and I felt slightly chill in my bones. There was a pale hand reaching up from out of the water behind me, holding on to me by the crook of my neck. Whoever it was, was trying to pull me down, and I felt so completely content about it. Everything was overwhelmingly peaceful. -From: Jeannie

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Anime Ramen: We meet first and third Saturdays at Moshimoshi Anime. Come watch anime TV and movies. All are welcome (minors must be accompanied by guardian). We share snacks; please bring some!

-Is your exploring team prone to practical jokes? My son insisted something big and red was outside his window the other night. He pointed out a pair of lights and I told him they were the neighbors, but I realize now that that wasn't the right direction. If they're out there with lights, please tell them to stop.

From: A Parent

EDITOR'S NOTE: That is not Freddi Caver's group, nor the work of anyone else we know. We hope that your son is feeling comfortable! Please drop by if you would like to discuss anything with us. There have been similar stories lately.

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Edited by Adria.

Contributors: Gillian, Kino, Freddi Caver and company, and readers. Weekly story by Cryptography column by Aivas. The weekly ciphertext originates from Processes of Perception, Conception, and Reporting by William K. Hartmann, published in the Condon Report, 1968. All products and media named in this issue are used in commentary, criticism, and for fun. Opinions are those of their respective writer. Please be civil. Have an ad, public service announcement, comment, query, or conundrum? Drop off a note at 504 Old Ensor Rd, box 5. The paper reserves the right to print your notes without recompense, cut them, and comment on them. Authors, please contact us for terms.

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Cryptography Column

Part 1

From Aivas

This month: Bigram Cipher

This month's cypher is one that hails back to some very fun old cryptography manuals. A bigram cipher relies on dividing your ciphertext up into two-letter segments, and replacing those with a single character. That means that you have a lot of combinations, and in turn, must have a large table of options to encipher from. On the other hand, it means that the ciphertext could be halved in length compared to the original plaintext. It's a bit time-consuming to encrypt and decrypt, and it's no more secure than any other cypher whose key can be stolen. All the same, this one is really fun. Because you need a large table, you can make it a long series of fun things. Little doodles? A series of fractal iterations? Other letters and computer characters? The sky's the limit. Today, we'll make use of a ciphering table from De furtivis Literarum Notis (1563), by Giambattista della Porta. It doesn't use every letter in the English alphabet, so our plaintext will have to be edited to suit that.

they reached perigee over Ontario, but were not destroyed

thei reached perigee over Ontario, bvt vere not destroied

th ei re ac he dp er ig ee ov er on ta ri ob vt ve re no td es tr oi ed

Part 2